it's a NATO thing. actually, i don't have a problem with forward deploying troops. that's why i was so disappointed with what we did in Iraq. what an opportunity tossed after that loss of life.

the bigger question might be: should NATO still exist, and if it's going to exist should be still be picking up the majority of the bill. seems to me that if the eurpoean countries still think NATO is important, they ought to spend less on welfare and more on defense.

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.....The greatest changes occur in their country without their cooperation. They are not even aware of precisely what has taken place. They suspect it; they have heard of the event by chance. More than that, they are unconcerned with the fortunes of their village, the safety of their streets, the fate of their church and its vestry. They think that such things have nothing to do with them, that they belong to a powerful stranger called the government. They enjoy these goods as tenants, without a sense of ownership, and never give a thought to how they might be improved.....

I think NATO is useful. Good training for our troops and the ability to use other forces when needed. But having so many troops over seas? That is a tough one. I understand that we need overseas bases for staging and deployment when the need arises, but large bases could be maintained by a small crew with everything mothballed until needed. It would be cheaper to keep our troops and equipment here. We can touch anywhere on this planet in a days time with combat troops (or at least a bunch of cruise missiles and drone aircraft). Bring the boys (and gals) home. Keep the bases.

large numbers of troops garrisoned at home have been the ruin of more than one nation. ;) NATO would be fine if we were not picking up the majority of the tab. it has it's uses and it presents at least the illusion of a united front.

if you are going to have NATO, you need to train with the troops you'll fight with. that's one reason for being overseas. another is that while it is true that we can reach out and touch anyone, there is a psychological benefit when the bad guys know that the Americans are just over the border.

one of the reason there was not a rapid response the Benghazi is that the AFRICOM rapid response team that should have been in place, wasn't. that's not to say that we couldn't have had a response, but it would have taken longer....if anyone in Washington had gotten off their backsides and bothered to order a response...

In a rapidly changing world, the difference between success and failure is often a matter of minutes, hours maybe, but not days.

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.....The greatest changes occur in their country without their cooperation. They are not even aware of precisely what has taken place. They suspect it; they have heard of the event by chance. More than that, they are unconcerned with the fortunes of their village, the safety of their streets, the fate of their church and its vestry. They think that such things have nothing to do with them, that they belong to a powerful stranger called the government. They enjoy these goods as tenants, without a sense of ownership, and never give a thought to how they might be improved.....

that's the truth. we foot a huge amount of the UN bill also. if you add all programs together, we fund close to 25% of the UN. the official number is around 22%, but add food, medical, etc. and the number is higher.

what do we get for that? not a thing. the only advantage to our being in the UN is to help protect some of our allies, but we are soon to be run over on that too.

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.....The greatest changes occur in their country without their cooperation. They are not even aware of precisely what has taken place. They suspect it; they have heard of the event by chance. More than that, they are unconcerned with the fortunes of their village, the safety of their streets, the fate of their church and its vestry. They think that such things have nothing to do with them, that they belong to a powerful stranger called the government. They enjoy these goods as tenants, without a sense of ownership, and never give a thought to how they might be improved.....

below is a small list. Do be advised that the US Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine forces deployed over seas is at an all time high as a percentage of the total force. Even as we have a much smaller overall force. It's almost like Barry prefers the men and women who pledged to protect the United States and its' Constitution from all enemies both foreign and domestic to be on the other side of the ocean from him.

BYW, there is a New Army Command coming on line The African Command. I guess we will soon be fighting tooth and nail with every indigenous African ethnic group who ever killed a noncombatant to put the African Humpty Dumpy back together again along their former ethnic, religious, and cultural lines.

Afghanistan is the only active war zone with US troops fighting there and there are approximately 68,000 American troops there.

Africa and the Middle East has been divided into two separate commands Bahrain – 2,713 Diego Garcia - 529 Djibouti – 168 Egypt – 280; See Multinational Force and Observers Kuwait - Approximately 15,000 Qatar – 806 Saudi Arabia - 284 United Arab Emirates - 191 I failed to see any US troops deployed in Libia where in September had two diplomats and two retired Navy personel killed and raped. but as our Mad darn of State so famously asked, "What does it matter now?"

There are 1,214,099 personnel on active duty in the United States and its territories: Alaska – 21,334 Guam – 5,468 Hawaii – 49,110 Puerto Rico - 163 The contiguous United States – 1,138,017It sure looks like a good time for Al Quida to invade Puerto Rico

US military bases in Germany in 2009. Belgium – 1,174 Germany – 47,761 [in 21 bases, besides, Im pretty sure Hitler is dead already] Greece – 351 [so is Pericleas] Italy – 10,922 [are they still looking for Moussolini?] Netherlands – 374 Portugal – 743 Spain – 1,727 [lol that war has been over for over a hundred years] Turkey – 1,505 United Kingdom – 9,317 this war's been over for almost 200 evil

Germany is a medical evac point and if you look at a map, you can see the advantage of having troops there.Italy, among other things, has our med spook base in naples. cool place. been there.we do CWT in Netherlands. we also have stuff stashed there.Spain, ditto Italy and Germanyturkey, self explanatory and NATO training. UK reciprocal spook base, air bases, training (spook and other)

in most of those countries, the bases are joint operations. there are not many places that we run all by ourselves anymore. naples would be one exception that i know of.

historically, those are pretty small numbers deployed. but then, we have a pretty small force now.........

Logged

.....The greatest changes occur in their country without their cooperation. They are not even aware of precisely what has taken place. They suspect it; they have heard of the event by chance. More than that, they are unconcerned with the fortunes of their village, the safety of their streets, the fate of their church and its vestry. They think that such things have nothing to do with them, that they belong to a powerful stranger called the government. They enjoy these goods as tenants, without a sense of ownership, and never give a thought to how they might be improved.....